This week, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft sent home the first images ever taken from the orbit of Mercury, revealing the first planet from the sun's hot, crater-riddled surface like never before

Taken with MESSENGER's wide-angle camera on Tuesday, this image is actually a composite of eight pictures, each taken through a different color filter (MESSENGER has 11 filters in total). Debussy, the 50-mile-wide crater, can be seen prominently.

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First Color Image of Mercury

First Color Image of Mercury

Taken with MESSENGER's wide-angle camera on Tuesday, this image is actually a composite of eight pictures, each taken through a different color filter (MESSENGER has 11 filters in total). Debussy, the 50-mile-wide crater, can be seen prominently.

NASA

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First Narrow-Angle Camera Image

First Narrow-Angle Camera Image

Taken in the same area as MESSENGER's first photo, this image demonstrates the substantial difference between the probe's wide- and narrow-angle cameras. The narrow-angle camera's 1.5-degree field of view is seven times smaller than that of the WAC, giving NASA scientists a tighter view of Mercury's surface. The NAC also boasts a 90-degree range of motion, allowing MESSENGER to photograph the surface even when the spacecraft is pointed away from the planet.

First Color Image of Mercury

Taken with MESSENGER's wide-angle camera on Tuesday, this image is actually a composite of eight pictures, each taken through a different color filter (MESSENGER has 11 filters in total). Debussy, the 50-mile-wide crater, can be seen prominently.

NASA

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First Narrow-Angle Camera Image

Taken in the same area as MESSENGER's first photo, this image demonstrates the substantial difference between the probe's wide- and narrow-angle cameras. The narrow-angle camera's 1.5-degree field of view is seven times smaller than that of the WAC, giving NASA scientists a tighter view of Mercury's surface. The NAC also boasts a 90-degree range of motion, allowing MESSENGER to photograph the surface even when the spacecraft is pointed away from the planet.

NASA

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Fresh Impact

This 4-mile-wide crater is a textbook example of a relatively new impact on Mercury's surface. The symmetrical impact rays—those lines leading away from the crater—suggest that it was a head-on impact. Over the course of its one-year orbit around Mercury, MESSENGER will be taking more than 75,000 images of the planet's surface. Those images will capture 98 percent of the planet's surface—more than doubling scientists' previous mapping of the first rock from the sun.

NASA

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Smooth Polar Plains

Mercury's surface isn't all crater-riddled. Pictured here is part of Mercury's (relatively) smooth northern polar region, a region never photographed until now. The NASA scientists focusing on the polar regions are hoping there could be ice hidden away in the depths of the craters.

NASA

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Mercury's Horizon

This 1,200-mile-wide shot of Mercury's horizon features the massive impact rays running north to south from the crater Hokusai. Now that MESSENGER is in orbit, these horizon images will be much less common as spacecraft begins its mission to map out nearly the entire surface of the planet.

NASA

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What Mercury Is Made Of

Unlike a traditional camera, MESSENGER's wide-angle camera shoots color photos through a composite of color filters, eight of which were used in this photo. As the spacecraft speeds over the surface, it snaps photos of the same area, cycling through the filters. Because minerals absorb more light at certain wavelengths as opposed to others, capturing Mercury's surface in a variety of colors can help to reveal its mineral composition.